ABOUT THE PROGRAM

Many participants travel to Copán Ruinas in the mountains of western Honduras for 1 or more weeks to study at the Ixbalanque School, live with host families, and enjoy a wide range of cultural activities including visits to the beautiful Maya ruins of Copán.

This is independent travel study so you pick the dates; classes typically begin on Mondays. You'll study for 3 or 4 hours per day either morning or afternoon and can register for 1 to 4 weeks and receive 60 Clock Hours/PDUs or 6 quarter credits (equivalent of 4 semester credits) per week.


PLEASE NOTE: The Heritage Institute courses receive Continuing Education Quarter Credits awarded by Antioch University Seattle at the 400 and 500 levels. Call 800.445.1305 or log onto The Heritage Institute’s website policies page for more information.

www.hol.edu


If you're interested in studying in a coastal city or on one of the Bay Islands of Honduras, check out the link for the Central American Spanish School with bases in La Ceiba and on Utila and Roatán. The 2 schools work together so you can combine weeks at each if you wish. If you prefer a different location or Spanish school, arrangements can be made; please contact the instructor.

For information about similar programs in other Latin American countries as well as credit for volunteer and cultural learning projects, click here or on the bottom link, below. For contact info click the REGISTRATION or SYLLABUS links.

To view the 2008 Live and Learn group trip blog, scroll to the Blog Archive (lower right) and click the 1st post you want to see (they're listed bottom to top chronologically, you may need to click the arrow by July to see the earliest ones). Click "Newer Post" at the bottom of each post to view the next one.

About Me

My photo
I was a teacher for more than 34 years and retired 10 years ago from directing Structured Learning Centers for kids with autism and multiple disabilities. Gaining conversational ease in Spanish has been an important goal for me and I find attending Spanish schools in Latin America and volunteering with local organizations both productive and addictive. In the course of my immersion studies in Latin America, I fell in love with the people of San Pedro La Laguna, Sololá, Guatemala and for the last 15 years have managed a nonprofit that matches scholarship sponsors with promising students in San Pedro who would otherwise be limited to 6 years of school: BecaProject.org My frequent visits to Guatemala, surrounded by their gorgeous textiles, reignited my interest in fiber arts which I’ve added to my list of passions along with family, Beca Project, camping, travel, and photography.

Ixbalanque Spanish School

Sunday, July 27, 2008

Sunday: the sculpture museum and shopping






Hello! Today 8 of us from The Dalles met in the parque central and headed to the ruins. Instead of revisiting the ruins themselves (saved for an early morning later this week) we visited the truly amazing sculpture museum which I missed last time I was in Copan since it was closed (for years) for repair. PHOTO 1 shows our 1st glimpse of a full-sized reproduction of the huge and glorious Rosalila temple, discovered beneath an exposed temple in the Copan ruins. PHOTO 2 and 3 are bats - the original (and some would say justifiably famous) bat sculpture from the ruins and a family of live bats JoAnne discovered inside the Rosalila temple. The museum is open to the sky above the temple and had a very calming, spiritual feel. We spent nearly 2 hours walking, gazing, reading, and discussing. We also had fun posing with the sculptures (PHOTO 4).

We had a fabulous pizza lunch in an Italian restaurant with Asian/American country influences, then did some more exploring and shopping. I finally found the new haunt of a favorite person from my previous visit to Copan: Carlos the carver (PHOTO 5). Most of us found hand-made jewelry or small carvings to buy for ourselves or gifts in his little shop. Back to school tomorrow! Happy trails!
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1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Thanks for writing this.

November 11, 2008 at 6:23 PM

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